Administration's Fun Little “Days Without Racist Incident” Counter Up to 43 Days

The Northwestern University Office of Student Affairs announced today that the counter at the front of the office denoting the number of days without a racist incident has reached a record 43 days.  The dry-erase placard, which hangs on a corkboard outside the Dean of Students office alongside an NU Nights flyer and a golden retriever calendar, has been a big morale-boost for the office workers, especially since Dave got a betting pool together for how long it would be “before the students got all up in arms again.”

“We all gathered around the board yesterday to watch Patricia change the number to 43,” intern Shelley Donovan told reporters.  “Dave brought these little confetti poppers for it and everything.  I mean, yeah, it’s kind of silly to care this much, but it’s just kinda become a thing around the office.  We’re gonna have a party when it hits 50, knock on wood!”

“It’s really been an entertaining thing to watch these past few weeks,” said Office Spokesman Gary Milton when reached for comment. “There were a handful of close calls, but that’s just what makes it exciting.  Thankfully there was nothing that blew up into the ‘we need an open campus dialogue’ territory.  Talk about a pain in the ass.  That’s when we have to go into emergency mode and just lay low for a little bit, which isn’t very fun for us.”

Though excited for this year so far, the Office of Student Affairs did comment that the real test would come during winter quarter when “the undergrads get all testy because of the weather.”  Milton noted: “It will be especially interesting in the next couple of weeks because Shelley put her money on 58 days and Dave has 63, so there might be some friendly ribbing going on.  Nothing too serious though.”

At press time members of the office were hanging up an “airport security threat level” sign so that they could mark how sensitive the student population is about the whole tuition hike thing on a day-to-day basis.